The chief advantage of the £600m Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (Earl) was to be a seamless connection with the main railway lines leading north, south and west, making rail rather than road the first choice of travellers. Yesterday the flagship transport programme of the previous Scottish administration was deemed "not sensible" by Stewart Stevenson, the Transport Minister, as he announced a replacement scheme stopping short of the airport itself and requiring passengers to travel the last mile to the terminal by tram. The new scheme will cost £200m (roughly the same as the Glasgow airport link).
The chief advantage of the £600m Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (Earl) was to be a seamless connection with the main railway lines leading north, south and west, making rail rather than road the first choice of travellers. Yesterday the flagship transport programme of the previous Scottish administration was deemed "not sensible" by Stewart Stevenson, the Transport Minister, as he announced a replacement scheme stopping short of the airport itself and requiring passengers to travel the last mile to the terminal by tram. The new scheme will cost £200m (roughly the same as the Glasgow airport link).
This will enable the £400m saving to be spent on improving rail services in the central belt. The prospect of electrifying the main Glasgow-Edinburgh line and cutting the journey time between the two cities to 35 minutes will be popular with the commuters travelling on overcrowded trains. Mr Stevenson's "vision" of an electrified network of rail routes stretching beyond the Edinburgh-Glasgow axis is a welcome recognition that travelling and commuting patterns are changing and, encouragingly, suggests a willingness to engage with the problems faced by many of Scotland's small towns which have too long been neglected. An effective and coherent transport strategy for the 21st century, however, must tackle the main issue of cutting car journeys and tackling road congestion and the pollution caused by making public transport an attractive, reasonably-priced, efficient alternative.
The big question is whether a slimmed-down Earl can remove 1.7 million car trips expected under the original plan. Improvements to other parts of the rail network, plus the new station at Gogar being accessible from Glasgow and providing a link to the Fife line, will perhaps compensate for not having a station at the airport terminal.
People outside the central belt need decent transport access to Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. A rail system which allows that, without having to travel into central Edinburgh, is progress, not only for Scots but also for tourists who are vital to the economy. In political terms, this version of the airport link demonstrates the difficulties faced by a minority government. The SNP fought the election on a commitment to scrap the original Earl as well as the tram system for Edinburgh. A vote in June, however, required it to go ahead with the trams and sort out Earl. What we are left with is an unsatisfactory compromise. On balance, it would make more sense to go back to the drawing board and produce a solution that served the long-term needs of Scotland's transport infrastructure.
